The Bulawayo Motoring Club was formed in November 1950 making it one of the oldest motor sports clubs in the country. One of the founder members was the late Bri an stead, whose son Ralph is an Honorary Life Member and is still an active member, usually acting as Clerk of The course at our tra ditional 3 Hour Endurance event in December each year – meaning the Stead family have had and association with BMC for more than half a century!
Famous names to originate from our area were motorcycle aces Gary Hocking and Jim Redman and initially John Love who moved on to four wheels and who must be one of the most well know motor sports personalities that the coun try has ever produced.
The Club’s original interest was in tar circuit racing but with the de mise of of other clubs in the prov ince took rallying, motocy les nd eventually karting under its wing. Another club that disappeared was the Bulawayo Motor Racing Club – a club for marshalls. This has now been revived and incorporated as a section of BMC. Famous (or infamous) events held in years past were the Selukwe (Shurugwi) Hill Climb where the police had to close the main road for the event to take place! Another popular event was the Happy Valley Hill Climb on a liberally watered dirt track.
The biggest event the club organ ises is the Three Hour Race. This event was originally part of the Springbok Series with sports car endurance races held in Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town and Lorenco Marques (Maputo) and The Embassy Three Hour Race was the first event to be held on the then brand new Bulawayo Circuit on 14th December 1969. For this race we saw the Lola Chevs of John Love and Mike de Udy, Ford GT40 of Malcolm Guth rie, Mirage Ford of Mike Hailwood, Chevron 816 of Digby Martland and
a horde of local and South African competitors. The first accident on the new circuit took place when Tony Figuerado rolled his Mini Cooper at the SAA fly-over.
In 1971 the Foreword to the Pro gramme “would like to welcome you to today’s race meeting, the fourth event counting towards !he Castrol Springbok Series. The line up of men and machinery for the race are second to none ever seen in this country, and for the fir t time in the history of motor sport in Rhodesia we will be seeing the two winners of the Classic Le Mans 24hour race in action”. The entry lists for the 3 Hour comprised 33 foreign entries and 11 local entries.
When the series was discontinued, Bulawayo came up with the idea of making it a 3 hour day/night race the only event in Southern Africa that required cars to use ead lights, making it a firm favour te of competitors and spectators alike.
The Club was also responsible for the introduction of the “Clubman” class in an attempt to find a middle of the road solution for those cars that were not suited or fast enough for full National races. Clubman was the solution and it worked.